Lena closed the door and rested against it.
She’d taken the stairs two at a time, the man who’d followed her all through the marketplace. To a movie, around the grocery store, and back to her apartment; hadn’t followed her into the hallway. Another five minutes passed. Her heart rate slowed and her eyes closed. Moments later she stopped expecting to hear heavy footsteps approaching. She almost fell asleep, the adrenaline was wearing off and suddenly her entire body was exhausted. She pushed away from the door.
“Bea?” She whispered loudly. Her body jolted back into action. It was weird that she hadn’t come to meet her. Lena made her way to the bedroom, she could hear the TV getting louder as she approached.
“… We won’t know until then for sure, but for now, it’s looking like sunny skies.” Lena rolled her eyes. It sounded more like a comedy skit than a weather person delivering the news. Funny how things progress in tandem. All to the same end… Different means… Same end. The equation played out in Lena’s mind as she opened the door to find her curious new friend, eyes pinned to the television.
“Hey Bea, what’s going on?” She glanced from her to the TV. “Are you…” She didn’t know what to ask, suddenly, so she just, waited for Bea to acknowledge her.
Instead, Bea patted the bed next to her, waving for Lena to join. “Look, they’re talking about the guy.” Lena found hear her voice, but Bea’s lips hadn’t moved. Or even opened.
“Okay, look. We gotta work on that, you can’t do that it public, you’re gonna freak people out.” She scolded. Suddenly sounding like the old man who’d first befriended her. Bea turned down the television, then on second thought paused it.
“What did I do?”
“NO STOP THAT!” Lena looked again, her lip pulling up. “How are you doing that? What are you doing?” She was suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of her friends voice being so easily in her head. She brought her hands to her lips as she spoke, being sure she was saying what she was saying out loud.
“Oh,” A mischievous smile crossed the strangers lips. “You mean heart talk. I should talk with my mouth.” Bea bit her lip. “I’m still learning to translate words. When I speak out loud I’m not as, articulate, I think my thoughts this way and they are translated into whatever will make sense for you. I didn’t know it was strange until my old friend reminded me.
Bea frowned. She couldn’t remember the old mans’ name, it was as if it had been lost somewhere in her head. She wasn’t sure if that was normal, or not. She couldn’t remember much from before the moment he’d found her naked in the myrtle grove and covered her in his extra coat. Tears squeezed from her eyes. He was gone, and she was here.
She couldn’t allow herself to picture what might have been different. If she’d been there, maybe when he’d sent her away, he’d known something was going to happen, and had done it to save her life. More tears. It had to be as it was. He’d told her that about so many things. It had stuck.
The first lesson after whatever had made her lose her memory. She wiped the corners of her eyes. So many things she didn’t know. So many things seemed strange, and outlandish in this place. This city. But something about this place, sitting on this bed with her new friend, sister. Soul siblings. Neither felt they’d belonged. That seemed to be something they shared. Both felt safer, and more complete. Even with all the unknowns, one thing was sure. She had a friend now. Someone to work through it with. She smiled at Lena.
“Thank you.” She reached over and patted her back. A swirl of green energy followed in the wake of her fingertips. Lena’s eyes widened. She looked past the glow and into her friend’s smiling face. Somehow the idea of her not making a big deal of it calmed Lena. So in some world, this isn’t strange. The idea took hold.
“This is just… normal to you?” She raised her eyebrow, waiting for the inkling to be verified. It had been a weird couple of days. Nothing was what it had seemed. And she needed someone to make sense of where she’d found herself standing. In this space, and time, with a person who seemed to be from a whole different world. One where magical things were, underwhelming. Things were changing so fast. Like… a spool of thread tugged and unraveled to the ground beneath.
“Can I tell you something that’s not natural to me?”
Lena nodded. “Please, go ahead.” She couldn’t help herself. She was amused. Bea leaked authenticity. How, and why, would anyone fake what she was doing. Lena had eyes, she had seen strange things happening easily, things that seemed impossible suddenly offered with an air of mundanity. a little fun being poked at someone who hadn’t ever seen things they were doing.
Lena couldn’t wrap her mind around it. The bigness. She stood from the old chest she’d turned into a seat and walked to the dresser to pull a little tin from the upper drawer. “Well?” She pushed as she drew back the lid. Revealing the little rolls of soul sage salad, as she’d called it. Bea was up like a butterfly to a patch of flowers.
“How about this. I don’t know, what you don’t know. Same as you don’t know what I know. So, we can help and teach each other.” She frowned, and then formed words out loud, her voice was untrained, but sweet. “Like how you said the same thing as my old friend, it reminds me that isn’t, normal to this place, even if it seems more natural to me.”
Even as she spoke her voice became more steady. It sounded like medicine. Milk and honey. She was strange. Lena smiled. So what does that say about me? She suddenly wondered.
Quick as a whip, Bea snapped back with. “It says you are like me.” She smiled sharply. “we are the same is some ways. Both do things differently. Both, have felt alone. Both, have no home.”
Lena’s face turned to stone. “Don’t do that.”
She sat up straighter, and frowned. Feeling suddenly invaded. “You don’t get to read my mind. That isn’t fair, that isn’t friendship, you can’t do that to me unless I can do the same thing.” She crossed her arms. “And how did you learn to do that?”
“How did you learn not too?” Bea asked, equally interested, not meaning to be rude, but hitting a nail on the head all the same.
“Fair enough, um… okay, teach me your way, mine sucks. You don’t need to be bothered with it if you can help it.” Bea’s eye twinkled. her eyes flashed and her hand was suddenly on Lena’s forehead. The point she touched felt hot, a moment later, it felt like an iceberg had lodged itself between her eyes. She inhaled shape and straightened. Her eyes closed but it felt like she’d bit down on a livewire. Her hand had a firm grip on something, she couldn’t tell what it was. Maybe it wasn’t important. Everything in her body was shivering, electric icicles coursed through her body until her teeth were chattering. Again heat coursed in equally, relieved of the cold but now consumed in a burn soul deep.
She wanted to scream but her entire body was fused with a singular shorting circuit. As sudden as a bulb sputtering to the end of its life Lena fell away from consciousness. Out like a light, gone with a thump. The last thing she heard, a second thump, she could only imagine might belong to the other one. What was her name…
And then, sweet nothing.
…
When Lena woke up she was in her bed, by herself. The sun was pouring through the window. There was an envelope on the pillow beside her. She stretched, taking her time. Her body felt amazing. Spry and tightly wound as a spring. She jumped out of bed and continued her stretch, she giggled a little at the difference between how she’d woken up the morning before, and how she was currently feeling. Could it be. The image of what had happened before she’d lost consciousness came to mind. Quick as an arrow slung from a well-honed in bow, the memory flooded in, as if it were again happening.
Lena caught her breath and released it just as quick. What is happening? She sat back onto the cushy bed, falling back into the down comforter. She was again eye-level with the envelope. She turned over and pulled it from it’s resting place to hold it above her head against the back drop of the ceiling in need of dusting.
She groaned. A task for a different day, or maybe later if she could find someway to reach it without a ladder. Or maybe she’d find a ladder that worked just right and offered her what she needed to get to the out-of-reach spaces.
“Hey,” Lena almost jumped out of her skin. She looked at the envelope that now seemed to be talking. “Stop what you’re doing and read me, dingus.” Lena let out an exasperated laugh. It was Bea’s voice, she knew it. Was this another side effect of the zap they’d experienced? Whatever it had been. Lena couldn’t remember the details. Like what she’d asked just before. Or how things had gone down. It could have been a glare of light and Bea hit a pressure point or something. But what was happening then, if that had all been nothing and explainable.
She opened the mouth of the envelope and pulled out the paper torn from her notebook. The writing was a little shaky at the beginning, but by about halfway in she had gotten the hang of her style. It was beautiful, and easy to read. Whatever she is, she adapts quickly and understands things to a degree I can’t even imagine. It’s like she has no comprehension of the laws and rules, so they don’t apply. Like, at all… Lena frowned thoughtfully, letting the idea run wild and wander. She unfolded the note Bea had left.
“Hey Lena, I’m going exploring, don’t worry, I am sure you will be waking up soon after I leave, I am going to buy donuts. Don’t worry I’ve been practicing talking out loud in the mirror for the last twenty-four hours while you’ve been sleeping. I just have to go get fresh air or I might wilt. I figured out a few new things that might surprise you that I can do. I’ve been looking up ways to fit in on the internet. Some people have interesting thoughts on how this can happen, others might need to be reprogrammed immediately or they might end up on the losing end of an externalized battle of wills and snakes. Shoots and ladders, one blogger talked about that example a lot. Made me think of what happened in the park. Had to go for a walk, so many things to learn. Be back as soon as I sense you’re awake, please wait.”
Lena was smiling as she finished the silly note. She laughed and walking the hallway into the kitchen. She cleaned the pot and started a fresh one. The smell intoxicated the space almost immediately. A light roast with a dark pour. Delicious, with a little honey and milk.
Hey! Dude… I’ve been doing you a favor and not talking or filling the airspace, but do you breathe? Lena blinked. Confused for a moment.
Ready? Watch this. Suddenly a soft whisper turned into an invasive flood of voices, all different tones, but all from the same source.
IF we are going to stay linked, I need you to think less… loudly about things that aren’t really… relevant.
She seemed to be choosing her words wisely, the constant murmur and clamoring calmed down until it was quiet in the background once more.
‘How do you do that? And what happens if we, unlink?” Lena blurted both questions into one.
“Practice. I almost drove James away because I was always thinking Loudly. I realized my emotional energy was overpowering, we weren’t even linked, he was just more sensitive than most.” She
“And what happens when or if, we unlink?” Lena asked again, this time without moving her mouth.
“Oh, the weaker one dies… I think.” Lena imagined Bea shrugging. She said it nonchalantly, as if suggesting a parking space in an empty lot with many availabilities, or separating had never really occurred to her as an option, so it still seemed irrelevant.
“Um…” Lena blinked. “So, clearly that would be me, so.. thanks for telling me that before mindzapping my body.”
“Don’t be all weird about it now, it’s not as clear as you think. Strength is based on a lot of things, and um, I am pretty sure I feel like an alien wearing skin in a place foreign to my innate understanding. Not sure what to do with that yet. I’m not sure what to think about, anything.” Lena rolled over, tossing the note onto the bed and looking out the window.
“so, can we talk any time like this?”
“Yup, from now until something unforeseen happens we can talk here whenever we want. When I get back to the apartment, I’m going to try to teach you how to shut it off so you can keep things to yourself when you want to. It isn’t fun if it feels like an invasion. I’ll teach you anything but you have to ask the right questions. I can’t answer or know what you don’t or do understand without your help.”
Lena was smiling again, her friend was, refreshing. “Thank you Bea.”
“For what?”
Silence reign between for a moment. “For being my friend.”
“Hey I asked for you too. I needed a friend just as much. Thank you all the same.”
Lena could hear the smile in Bea’s voice as what sounded like a phone hanging up clicked the line between. She must have set the line down to give me privacy. Lena jumped in a circle. If I can master telepathy with one person… can I send and receive messages from… anyone.
She thought of the detective, without meaning to. The smell of sauteed onions and some kind of juicy meat saturated her senses without a source. She let out a laugh full of surprise. “whaaaaaaaat, I wonder if she’s making dinner, or something.” She murmured. Her smile widened, let the games begin.